


the artistry in tearing the place apart (with me)

by snailfl0wers



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Azula (Avatar) Redemption, Azula (Avatar)-centric, Azula grapples with her own issues, Brother-Sister Relationships, Canon Compliant, Character Study, Everyone other than Zuko and Azula is just mentioned briefly, Flashbacks, Forgiveness, Metamorphosis, Non-Chronological, Ozai (Avatar) Being a Terrible Parent, Ozai (Avatar) is an Asshole, Post-Canon, Zuko (Avatar)-centric, Zuko allows himself to consider forgiving Azula, no beta we die like jet, not including the comics bc i havent finished them
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-27
Updated: 2020-09-27
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:35:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,144
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26686009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snailfl0wers/pseuds/snailfl0wers
Summary: “When you hit the ground it didn’t look like you were breathing. I thought you were dead.” She says it like it’s a confession.“I almost was. I could have been”Azula is studying her fingernails, her eyes betraying nothing of her thoughts.“And how did you feel?” Zuko asks after a pause. “When you thought I was dead, how did you feel?”Her eyes snap up towards his, soft, wide. There is no malice in those eyes. They look like the eyes of a child.“I don’t know,” she whispers. Her eyes are searching his, pleadingly. “I don’t know.”Zuko looks at his sister. Sitting on the floor with him, her choppy and uneven hair freshly brushed and loses around her shoulders, dressed in an oversized cotton shirt, she doesn’t look like a threat. She looks sad, and small. For the first time in her life, Zuko thinks she looks like a fourteen year old girl.“That’s okay,” he says. He wants to reach out to her, to wrap her in his arms, to stroke her hair and make her understand. He wants to so badly, but he is still afraid. The lightning scar on his chest still aches with a phantom pain if he thinks about it.
Relationships: Azula & Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 10
Kudos: 181





	the artistry in tearing the place apart (with me)

**Author's Note:**

> title from wrecking ball by mother mother

IV

“When you hit the ground it didn’t look like you were breathing. I thought you were dead.” She says it like it’s a confession.

“I almost was. I could have been”

Azula is studying her fingernails, her eyes betraying nothing of her thoughts. 

“And how did you feel?” Zuko asks after a pause. “When you thought I was dead, how did you feel?”

Her eyes snap up towards his, soft, wide. There is no malice in those eyes. They look like the eyes of a child. 

“I don’t know,” she whispers. Her eyes are searching his, pleadingly. “I don’t know.”

Zuko looks at his sister. Sitting on the floor with him, her choppy and uneven hair freshly brushed and loose around her shoulders, dressed in an oversized cotton shirt, she doesn’t look like a threat. She looks sad, and small. For the first time in her life, Zuko thinks she looks like a fourteen year old girl. 

“That’s okay,” he says. He wants to reach out to her, to wrap her in his arms, to stroke her hair and make her understand. He wants to so badly, but he is still afraid. The lightning scar on his chest still aches with a phantom pain if he thinks about it. 

Azula looks away, her eyes darting to the ceiling. She takes a deep breath, wrapping her arms around her chest tightly. “I wasn’t sad,” she whispers. “I didn’t feel sad.”

Zuko lets out a breath.  _ I know _ , he wants to say.  _ I know what he did to you. I know it’s harder because you don’t have a scar. I know it’s harder because he told you he loved you. I know, I know, I know _ . He wishes he wasn’t still afraid. The scar on his chest throbs.

Azula leans against the wall, squeezing her eyes shut and turning her face away from him. She does not cry. She does nothing but take slow, deep breaths. 

Zuko leans against the wall next to her, the bars of her cell between them, and breathes as well. 

I

Zuko throws himself down on his pillows, sobbing.

“Really, Zuzu,” Azula laughs, and Zuko throws the pillow over his head.

“Get out of here!” he cries. “Get out, you’re crazy!”

“Oh please.” Azula settles herself next to him on the bed, attempting to yank the pillow off his head. “You know, there’s nothing charming about acting like a big baby.”

“You burned me!” he screams, pushing the pillow off himself to sit up and glare at his little sister. He shoves his arm into her face, showing her the bright red mark stretching across his forearm. “You’re literally a psycho, Azula.”

Azula shrugs it off. “You wouldn’t have gotten burned if you hadn’t been stupid enough to get in the way while I was practicing. What were you even trying to do, anyways?”

Zuko sniffles, yanking his arm away to cradle it in his uninjured one. “Stop it. Don’t make fun of me.”

Azula groans. “Please don’t be pathetic, Zuzu. If you didn’t get so frustrated whenever you tried to firebend you wouldn’t be so useless at it.”

“Easy for you to say!” he yells, glaring at her. His arm is really stinging now, but he’s trying to blink the tears out of his eyes and stop sniffling so much. He knows it’s a lost cause, but the less ammunition he gives Azula to use against him the better. “You’re always perfect at firebending. You never even have to try.”

“Well, that’s true,” Azula scoffs, leaning her weight on her elbows as she lays further back on Zuko’s bed and grins at him. “But honestly, if you’re going to cry about it just because it’s hard, then you’re even more of a baby than I thought.” She flops fully onto her back, glaring down the bed at Zuko, who is hastily scrubbing his nose on the back of his uninjured arm, still looking forlornly at his burn. 

Azula groans. Honestly, he’s being dramatic as always. The burn isn’t even  _ that _ bad. She stands up off the bed and reaches her hand out to her brother. “Alright, get up, drama queen.”

Zuko blinks suspiciously at her outstretched hand. “Why? What do you want?”

Azula rolls her eyes, grabbing his hand roughly and yanking him up to a standing position. “Come on,” she sighs, tugging lightly. “If Mom thinks I attacked you, she’ll have my neck. Anyways, I want to show you some  _ actual _ firebending moves so you won’t get an idiotic injury like that again.”

Zuko’s tearful eyes snap to hers in disbelief. “You-you want to show me some firebending moves? For real?”

Azula scoffs. “Whatever, I’m not doing this for your sake. If I have the biggest embarrassment in the Fire Nation for a brother it’ll reflect badly on me. Now come on, stupid.”

She turns and leaves the room, not bothering to glance behind her to see if Zuko is following. 

Arm still aching from the burn, Zuko smiles slightly. “Thanks, Azula,” he calls after her retreating back.

“I hate you!” she calls back cheerfully. 

V

“Are you going to forgive her?”

Zuko looks over at Aang, who stares openly back. 

“What, all that time with Katara hasn’t knocked some sense into you?” He means it as a joke, but something in his voice must betray that a part of him truly is annoyed.

Aang just smiles. “Actually, I was going to say you don’t have to. After everything she put you through… You almost died, Zuko. She almost killed you.”

Zuko lets out a long, slow breath. “She was… hurt, too. She wasn’t always- Well, usually she was. But she wasn’t always cruel.”

“No one is ever all or nothing, Zuko,” Aang says, putting an arm around Zuko’s shoulders and squeezing gently. “Everyone has both good and bad within them. Even  _ I  _ have bad inside!” He jostles Zuko’s shoulders playfully. 

Zuko smiles faintly. He chews at his bottom lip,thinking about how lost he had to become before he truly knew who he was, the mistakes he had to make. “My sister isn’t a bad person, Aang. She’s been… really confused, I think. For a long time. At least I had Uncle, and you guys. Azula has… I think she’s never had anyone she could truly feel safe with.”

“You sound like you  _ want _ to forgive her.” Zuko isn’t looking at Aang, but he can hear the smile in his voice. 

Zuko’s hand drifts subconsciously to his lightning scar, touching it lightly through his robes. He thinks about his sister- her crooked smile and her high laugh. He thinks about her warm golden eyes and the way they could turn cold in an instant. He thinks about her pushing, her yelling, the smug glee on her face whenever he failed. He thinks about the fear he would see flash through her eyes when she thought she had disappointed Ozai, the way she could lie through her teeth and have it sound exactly like a truth, the way she aimed her fire at him with the intent to kill.  _ I thought you were dead. I didn’t feel sad.  _

He allows himself to imagine forgiving her. He thinks she would probably laugh at him. He imagines reaching out, touching her without fear. He can’t remember the last time he hugged his sister. It may have been never. 

“I’m afraid,” he admits. 

“You have a choice, Zuko.” Aang says it with real conviction. 

_ I have a choice.  _ Zuko thinks about Azula, sitting in her prison cell, looking small and quiet and so, so tired. 

“I have a choice. And she does, too.”

III

Azula spent the first few weeks angry. Her cell was freezing, an ice block made in an attempt to discourage firebending, and the cold only served to piss her off until the anger radiated out of her in hot waves, steaming up the air. 

After the anger came the tears. She tried to stifle them at first, but she realized there was no one to hide them from, and eventually stopped holding back. She screamed with sobs, full body ordeals that left her feeling shaky and exhausted and empty when she finally cried herself out. She lay face down on the floor of her cell, shivering and gasping for breath, not even sure what she was feeling but finally, finally allowing herself to feel it.

Once she had cried herself dry, the anger came back tenfold. Anger at Zuko, at the water tribe peasant who had bested her, at her nation, at her mother. Anger at Mai and Ty Lee. Anger at herself. Anger at her father.

The first time Zuko came to visit her, she had screamed at him. Called him every word she could think of, and when the words ran out, just senselessly screamed noises. She felt so frustrated, so empty. Zuko had stared her down. He didn’t react to the things she was saying, but his eyes looked sad. It boiled Azula’s blood to see him looking at her like that, and only encouraged her to scream harder.

Zuko had sat against the wall next to her cell and watched her scream. And once she had screamed herself hoarse and cried herself into exhaustion and crumpled to the ground, sniffling and shaking, he had remained silent. She didn’t know how long he sat beside her as she cried, but the whole time he didn’t say a word.

Azula was still angry, but the anger didn’t burn quite so intensely anymore. Most days she just felt numb. Zuko would come and sit with her sometimes. Sometimes he would talk about his day, his friends, something funny that had happened. He never talked about his political duties or mentioned being the Firelord. He probably thought it would make Azula angry. 

_ Jokes on him _ , she thought.  _ Everything makes me angry _ . 

Sometimes he reads to her. Apparently, Zuko loves poetry. Azula never knew that about him, and she wonders if he loved poetry before he was banished or if it was something he picked up from their ditz of an uncle. She wonders what else she doesn’t know about this new Zuko, or if she knows anything at all. She used to think she could read Zuko like a book. But then again, she thought she could read Mai and Ty Lee and look where that got her. 

Other times Zuko is silent. Maybe he is waiting for Azula to speak, but she never does. Sometimes she wants to. Sometimes, while Zuko is talking, she imagines what she would say. She imagines laughing at the funny parts of his stories, at saying something sarcastic about his friends (who all sound like idiots), at commenting on a line of poetry she finds particularly pretentious. She has conversations with Zuko in her head. She never opens her mouth. 

II

Azula laughs at Zuko when he fails and-

Azula mocks Zuko when he tries and-

Azula smiles when he is burned and-

Zuko has never seen his sister cry and-

Zuko cries nearly every night.

Azula calls him a baby when he does it.

Azula calls him lots of things. 

Zuko is scared of Ozai, and one night when he is crying, Azula comes into the room and tells him she’s scared of him too. Then she threatens to burn him if he ever tells anyone.

Azula sometimes lets Zuko brush her hair, and in return she brushes his. Sometimes she yanks it on purpose. But sometimes her hands are light and gentle.

Once, when Ozai was screaming at Ursa, Azula came into Zuko’s room and sat next to him on the bed. Neither of them said a word, but when Zuko looked at his sister she looked younger and more fragile than he had ever seen her look. Eventually Zuko fell asleep with Azula pressed up against his side, and in the morning he woke up alone. They didn’t talk about it. 

There are many things they don’t talk about.

Azula doesn’t know how to be friends with Mai and Ty Lee. Sometimes she stands to the side and watches them laugh. At night she lays in bed and tries to remember the things that make her friends laugh. She runs through the list in her head over and over.

Azula laughs at Zuko when he fails.

VII

“He sounds like an idiot.”

Zuko is in the middle of telling Azula a story about something Sokka had done the previous night at dinner, but his next words die in his throat. He gapes at his sister, who is staring determinedly at the floor, picking at a tiny crack in the cold stone.  _ Agni, Zuko, don’t make it weird. It’s just the first thing your sister has said to you in months. Don’t make a big deal out of it or you’ll scare her off. _

“Uh, he’s- he’s kind of an idiot. But he’s really smart,” he manages to croak, failing to keep his voice normal. Zuko clears his throat.  _ Keep it together. _ “Anyways, so Sokka gets up on the table…”

Azula doesn’t speak throughout the rest of the story, but it’s a start. Zuko leaves her cell feeling strange and off-kilter, but for the first time in months, he feels a flicker of hope. 

VI

Zuko allows himself to imagine a future with Azula. 

He remembers the painful process of metamorphosis and cringes, knowing it will be a million times more painful for his sister. The years of abuse from Ozai, the impenetrable walls she erected to keep herself safe from that abuse. Zuko knows having Uncle there through his metamorphosis was one of the only things that got him through it. He thinks about sitting next to Azula as she goes through that process herself. He could bring her water and make sure he is nearby when she wakes up. He could brush her hair, if she would let him. He’s practiced braiding hair on Sokka. Maybe Azula would like it if he braided hers. He hasn’t touched her hair in years.

Zuko thinks about teaching Azula everything Uncle taught him about tea. He thinks about her laughing at him when he messes up a joke. She always laughed at him when he messed up, but he thinks maybe she would start laughing in a kinder way. Less cruel, less joyful at his failure. He thinks maybe she could learn to laugh at herself, too. It seems an awful lot to ask for.

Azula is mean. She is cold and calculating and cruel. She is hyper critical of herself and everyone around her. She is rude. She knows how to manipulate people to get what she wants. She is fourteen years old. 

Zuko thinks about himself at fourteen. Freshly scarred and obsessed with the Avatar. Snapping at his uncle, yelling orders at his crew. Terrified of his father. Trying his hardest to make him proud. Oblivious to everything Iroh was doing for him. Self assured to disguise the fact he was deathly afraid and so, so angry.

Azula is mean, but she is smart. She is calculating, but she can easily read others’ emotions. She is strong and powerful and naturally good at firebending. She could be funny, when she wasn’t making jokes at other people’s expense. She was confident and cool under pressure. She was ambitious. Zuko thinks in another life she would probably get on well with Katara. Katara is the second scariest person Zuko knows, after his sister. His heart aches imagining a world where he is eating dinner with his friends, with Sokka on his left and Mai on his right, Aang and Katara beside them, Toph and Ty Lee sitting across from each other. He imagines Uncle at the head of the table, serving tea to everyone. And at the end of the table is Azula. She is smiling in a carefree way, an expression he isn’t sure he’s ever seen on her face. She cracks jokes with Toph, shows off a little, gently makes fun of Zuko. 

Zuko’s cheeks feel wet, and he realizes he might be crying a little. He thinks about his sister, and how small she looks when he visits her in her cell, and allows himself to want, desperately, for a future where she can be a part of his life.

VIII

“Zuko.” She is not looking at him.

Zuko looks at his sister. Upon his request, several weeks ago she had been moved from her icy cell to a secluded wing of the palace. She had been given freedom to roam, to visit the grounds, to dress herself and take meals in her room. This time in the palace had softened Azula around the edges. Her cheeks looked softer and rounder, and she had gained weight, just like they all had in the time since their year on the run. The extra weight made her look younger. Sometimes, when she and Zuko were talking, he looked at her and struggled to see the person who had committed the atrocities in Ba Sing Se or aimed a lightning blast at his heart. 

“Azula…” He trails off. 

She looks over at him. Her eyes are golden brown in the candlelight. They might be full of tears, or the light is just reflecting off them oddly. Or maybe the tears in Zuko’s eyes are making it hard to tell. If anyone asks, he’ll blame it on his shitty eyesight. 

“Zuko, I-” Azula cuts herself off, taking a deep breath. Zuko knows that Azula will not apologize. At least not yet, not for a while. He knows that it will take time for him to ever truly forgive her for the suffering she put him through, the abuse she was complicit in. He knows that some days will be harder than others, that she might even lose her way for a while again. But he is also certain he will be there for her through all of it. He will help her find her way. He will listen quietly when she kicks and screams and lashes out. He will not force his friends to forgive her. He knows they will need time. But Zuko thinks one day he will forgive her. He will pull her through whatever she needs to endure, and he will forgive her, and after that, maybe she will apologize. 

Zuko’s scar on his chest is aching, and aching, and aching. 

Zuko thought he needed to wait until he was no longer afraid. But sitting here with his sister, on her bed, the dim room lit by candles and glowing softly, he is still aching. His heart racing, his scar still burning, Zuko reaches out. 

IX

And pulls his sister close. 

X

Azula lets out a breath. It comes out like a sob. She lets herself be held.

**Author's Note:**

> aahhh there you have it!! this is my first fic in around three (?) years but quarantine has made all of us revert to our old coping mechanisms. also, i'm procrastinating writing a paper for my cultural anthropology class by writing an azula & zuko sibling dynamic character study.
> 
> i tweet about atla @snailflowers on twitter, come say hi!!
> 
> thanks so much for reading!!!


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